Perchance to Dream a Memory
by DawnieWrites
Summary: Two years after the Collapse of Sunnydale, and months after her breakup with Robin, Faith starts having weird dreams, Slayer dreams that lead her to England...and to a hidden secret community of Witches and Wizards.
1. Perchance to Dream

**DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING...duh. If I owned it, it wouldn't be called FanFiction and all slayers would wear leather pants**

_...She could feel him everywhere, surrounding her, filling her, touching her in a way that made her stomach burn deep inside. And then he looked at her, his grey eyes, eyes that shone like silver as they met her own, as they seemed to penetrate her, to see straight through to her soul as her world exploded around her in a wave of euphoria. He whispered her name, his lips right next to her ear..._

_And then there was a knife in her stomach and she felt numb, so unbelievably numb as she stared into the cold dead eyes of her lover lying next to her, the only coherent thought in her mind being that she should have been able to prevent this, should have been able to see this coming from a mile away._

_But she didn't. And now the three of them were dead..._

Faith woke with a start, a scream dying in her throat as she sat straight up in bed, tangled in the covers and fighting to be free of them, only to lose and fall off of the edge, landing with a loud _thump_ on the floor. She sat up, throwing the blankets back onto the bed with one hand and rubbing her tender rear with the other.

"Ow."

"Faith?" she heard a muffled voice on the other side of her bedroom door, followed by a loud knock. "Are you alright? I heard something fall."

"Five by five Dawn," Faith replied as the door opened to reveal the younger Summers sister standing in the doorway dressed in a pair of jeans and a forest green peasant blouse, her long brown hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. "Just had a messed-up dream and fell out of bed."

"Slayer dream?" the younger girl asked, pushing the door open all of the way and stepping inside.

"I dunno," Faith replied honestly, taking a seat on the edge of her bed, "it didn't seem very cryptic...to be honest it seemed more like a memory, or even a vision maybe."

"That's impossible," Dawn stated, taking a seat next to her, "you don't get visions, and from what little we know, visions are only meant to be had by those with the lineage for it, like a seer, or those who posses demon blood and receive them from the Powers that Be, otherwise you end up like Cordelia."

"In a lot of pain and almost dead," Faith finished. "I know. It was probably nothing anyway."

"Just to be safe, record it in your journal," Dawn suggested, "better safe than sorry, right?"

"Right," Faith agreed. Ever since the Watcher's Council had been rebuilt, all Slayers were now required to keep dream journals, recording all possibly prophetic dreams in journals similar to the kind the Watcher's themselves used to record the memoirs of their days training their respective Slayers; so far, only she and Buffy had ever found use for them, and although there was the occasional case of one or two of the Minis having a need for them, it was usually either Buffy or herself who had the dreams anymore. Buffy had filled four journals so far and was halfway through her fifth, while Faith was well into her third journal. "I'll write it up and meet you downstairs when I'm dressed."

Dawn just nodded and stood up, walking out and closing the door behind her. Faith sighed and flopped back on her bed; the dream had felt so...real. It was as if she had felt it all before. If only she knew where.

Faith sighed again and sat up, pulling a leather-bound journal and a pen out from underneath her mattress, she flipped over onto her stomach, crawled up further onto the bed, turned to a blank page, and began to write...

Dawn tossed and turned in bed; after a full day of helping Faith train the new batch of Mini-Slayers that had arrived six days earlier, she should have no problems falling to sleep. By all counts, she should have been asleep the moment her head touched the pillow. But she wasn't. Instead, she was lying in her nice, warm, comfortable bed, staring at the ceiling with a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that there was something that she was missing, something extremely important that she was forgetting, or was just out of her reach.

So she did what she usually did when she couldn't sleep; she got out of bed, put on a pair of sneakers, and went running. The wind rushing past her face, her feet hitting the pavement, beating out the familiar path as the cool air rushed past, clearing her mind. The best time to run was late night or early morning, when it was the quietest, when there was nobody else around to disrupt her thought process, the only sound in the night air being her own harsh breathing and her shoes meeting pavement as the world around her seemed to slow to a crawl, giving her time to think. And then it hit her: _Faith's dream journal! _Faith had promised to fill it out and give it to Dawn to read.

But she had failed to do so, which was extremely unusual for Faith. Since Dawn had become her watcher, she had never known Faith to be anything but punctual when it came to turning in her Dream Journal and filling out her work-out regiment. Hell, in the past month her Slayer had been nothing if not compliant, even agreeing to Dawn's crazy new rules after she caught the last batch of Mini's sneaking in not only pounds of candy, but boys into their bedrooms.  
>Something was definitely wrong, Dawn decided, running in a circle to turn around and make her way back to the house, and she was determined to find out what the hell was going on...<p>

She woke up sweating for the third time that week; not to the cold, spine-chilling, terrifying, sweat-soaked nightmares either, but the heated, fiery, intensely passionate, lust-filled fantasies that had been filling her mind lately. And it was really starting to piss her off. Faith hadn't been in a relationship or gotten close, physically and emotionally, to anybody since she had split with Robin two and a half months ago, and the dent it was making in her already tenuous control on her libido was damn-near killing her.

She had been getting the dreams for almost a month and a half now, and the only one she had recorded in her journal had been the terrifying, gut-wrenching nightmare that had ended with both her and her dream-lover dead in bed, startling her awake with a scream dying in her throat as she landed on her bedroom floor, and the only reason she had bothered recording that dream was because Dawn had caught her in the aftermath and would have been suspicious if she _hadn't _recorded it.

Faith still didn't know what the dreams meant, or where they were coming from, and she found that she really could care less; they set her entire body on fire, from the slow burn in-between her legs, to the heat boiling in her stomach, to the rest of her extremely aroused, extremely tortured body.

So she did the first thing that came to mind: she put on a pair of sweatpants and a tank top and made her way downstairs to the training room, fully intending on beating the leather punching bag until her body calmed down, or the chain pulled out of the ceiling, whichever came first. She was in the middle of her work-out routine, her music blaring, filling the soundproof room with hard rock, when she noticed another presence in the room. She caught the punching bag mid-swing and turned around to find Dawn standing in the doorway clad in a jogging suit and sneakers, her hair pulled back in a ponytail.

"Dawn," she greeted, breathing heavily. "What are you doing up?"

"Couldn't sleep; and I could ask you the same question. You're not on patrol tonight."

"Restless, got too much energy."

"Liar."

"Excuse me?"

"Where's your dream journal?" Dawn asked. "You were supposed to give it to me yesterday and I never got it."

"So I forgot, what's the big deal?" Faith responded, turning back to the punching bag, "Like you're so perfect."

"I never said I was perfect Faith, and don't make this about me!" Dawn snapped, fed up with Faith's attempts at trying to avoid the subject, "Something is going on with you and you're going to tell me what it is so we can work this out!" She was me with silence. "Damnitt Faith, turn around and look at me!" Dawn ordered, grabbing the Slayer's shoulder. The next thing she knew, she was flat on her back, Faith straddling her waist, pinning her wrists, with both hands at her throat as the punching bag continued swinging slowly above them. The Slayer glared at her, breathing heavily.

"Faith," Dawn whispered quietly, careful not to provoke her. "Faith, you need to let me go," she instructed cautiously, straining to speak through the firm grip the older girl had on her throat. "You need to let me go, _right now_." And then her entire demeanor changed, her eyes going wide, as if she was suddenly realizing exactly what was going on. Faith dropped her hands, rolling to the side and scrambling away until she reached the wall, turning around and pressing her back against the mats, drawing her knees up to her chest and hiding her face in her hands.

"Shit Dawn, I'm so sorry! I-I don't know what happened," Faith apologized, the words rushing out of her mouth. "One second I was fine, and then I just...I don't know!"

"It's alright," Dawn rasped, sitting up and rubbing at her throat to soothe the burn. "I'm fine, no harm done."

"No harm done? No harm done?" Faith shouted, staring at her Watcher as if she had suddenly grown a second head. "I could have killed you!"

"But you didn't, and no permanent damage or serious injury was done. Now shut up and calm down," Dawn instructed. "You are going to go upstairs, get your dream journal, and meet me in the kitchen with it. We are then going to go over all of your dreams for the past two months, when your change in behavior began. You are then going to fill in the missing dreams, the ones you have been failing to inform me of."

"How did you-?"

"Something is going on with you. I didn't think anything of it until you had that nightmare night before last. So now, you are going to tell me everything." Dawn instructed. "And that means _everything_." She added, narrowing her eyes dangerously at the Slayer. Faith just nodded and stood up; she did _not _feel like pissing Dawn off anymore than she had.

The next morning when the SiTs came downstairs for breakfast, they were all surprised to find both their Watcher and Head Slayer sitting at the island in the kitchen, Faith's dream journal lying open between them.

"These aren't just dreams!" they heard Dawn hiss.

"No, they aren't, they're panty-drenching fantasies, 'cause I'm not getting any and I am not happy about it." Faith replied with a sigh, the 'No Shit Sherlock' tone of her voice making it obvious how tired she was.

"Faith, be serious! The dreams started almost two months ago, right?"

"Yeah."

"And the only one that you wrote down is the one that ends in death?"

"Yeah. Not seeing a point here."

"My point is, what if the all of these dreams were remnants of some kind of memory, or some past life or something, and the one where you die is a Slayer dream overlapping the memory? Maybe these are all Slayer dreams, coming to you as some sort of a memory? What if something bad is about to happen?"

"What are you all doing just standing here?" Vi asked from behind the SiTs as she descended the stairs. All of the SiTs whirled around, panic written all over their faces at the fact that they had been caught spying on their Head Slayer by her SiC. The door to the kitchen swung open the rest of the way to reveal Dawn standing in the doorway, clearly annoyed.

"Does nobody in this house know the meaning of privacy?" she asked through grit teeth.

"Is there an apocalypse coming?" One of the girls, Julie, piped up, her question setting off the others.

"Are we going to get to fight?"

"Does this mean more advanced weapons training?"

"Do we get field experience now?"

"ENOUGH!" Dawn yelled. "There is no apocalypse, and there will be no advanced training or field exercises until Vi or Faith say you're ready for them. Now all of you are going to shut up, eat breakfast, and then meet Vi down in the training room in half an hour!" All of the SiTs cringed at the chastisement, some of them nodding before trooping past Dawn into the kitchen. "Vi and Faith, my room please," Dawn ordered, making her way upstairs to the third floor, where her private study was.

"Dawn, Faith, what's going on? You both look like shit; were you up all night?" Vi asked.

"Thanks so much," Dawn drawled, "Vi, you're going to be in charge of the SiTs for a few days, maybe a few weeks. Faith and I are going to England."

"We are?" Faith asked.

"Yes. We are. I need access to some of the old Council documents that haven't been computerized. So as soon as my replacement Watcher gets here, we'll leave; unless you think that you can handle being on your own for a little bit until they get here."

"I think I'll be fine." Vi assured her, "you two can go."

"Great. We'll leave first thing tomorrow morning," Dawn chirped, "The sooner we figure this shit out, the better."

"Merry old England, here we come," Faith remarked tiredly.

**A/N August 3, 2011 - Typed this up on the plane-ride home from New York. Idea got stuck in my head and would not let me be! RAWR. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy and review. And for those of you reading and tracking my other stories, they have not been updated because I just got almost every single part of my laptop replaced, and ever since, my external hard drive, which has my entire life on it, INCLUDING my stories, has been on the funk and not working, so I currently have no access to any of my current things.**

SiT - Slayer in Training  
>SiC - Second in Command<p>

***EDIT: January 4, 2012 – Got my external hard drive back with almost all of my documents and writings recovered; only a few were missing. But now the charger for my laptop isn't working…**_**again**_**, which means that I can't use my laptop without the battery dying until the new charger gets here on Friday. Which also means I am stuck using my grandmother's computer until then, which means I will have limited access unless I go to the library instead, which probably isn't happening since I'm really lazy and don't have my license yet…or a car.**

**3 Insomniatic**


	2. Destination: London

Faith tapped her foot impatiently as the plane taxied down the runway in preparation for take-off.

"I don't like this," she hissed.

"What?" Dawn asked, marking the page in her book and turning to Faith.

"Planes; I don't like planes. And I have a really, really bad feeling about England."

"Faith, do you want to find out what's going on with your crazy wacked-out dreams, or not?"

"Well yeah, but does that mean we have to go to England?"

"That's where the books are," Dawn stated patronizingly.

"Which books? Would those be the boring ones?"

"All books are boring to you, Faith, and I know what you're doing." Dawn reopened her book and continued reading.

"What am I doing?"

"Trying to start a fight with me to distract yourself from how scared you are of flying for the first time."

"_I_ am _not_ scared!" Faith scoffed.

"Then why are you gripping the armrests so tightly?"

"I hate you, ya know that? You annoy me greatly."

"Glad to be of service."

Faith huffed in annoyance and leaned her head back against the seat. England; why did that one word make her feel so nervous? Every time she thought about it, it made her stomach curl into knots. Not that the looming eight-hour flight was helping her any. She took a deep breath in through her nose, and slowly let it out through her mouth, relaxing her muscles as she settled down in an attempt to meditate, something she had never been very good at.

_'Breathe in…breathe out…visualize…'_

* * *

><p><em>She was sitting underneath a tree near a lake that looked as black as the sky at night. The leaves on the tree were auburn and brown and gold and there was a chill in the air, making her shiver slightly. She jumped when she felt an arm slide around her waist before relaxing into the touch.<em>

"_It's cold out." She muttered._

"_Then come inside. The fire is going."_

"_It's too crowded in there. I don't want to deal with all the people." She could practically feel him roll his eyes, and then the arm around her waist disappeared and there was a warm weight on her shoulders and she smiled when she felt a warm breath on her ear._

"_Still cold?"_

"_No." She turned around to face him…_

…_and found herself sitting in a dark, empty room, the sound of hushed voices echoing from somewhere behind her._

"_I ordered her not to be harmed."_

"Faith?"

_"And harm her I did not," A cold voice answered._

"_Well you obviously did something!"_

"Faith, can you hear me?"

_"I simply paralyzed her. It will wear off by the time you get her to the states."_

"Faith, wake up!"

Faith jolted awake, her eyes snapping open as she sat up straight to find Dawn staring at her, one hand on her shoulder.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Peachy fucking keen," Faith grumbled. "What's happening?"

"We're about to land in London. You slept the whole flight; are you hungry?"

"Starved," Faith realized suddenly, stretching her arms above her head and arching her back, smiling satisfactorily when she heard the vertebrae i_pop_./i

"We can eat in the airport if you want."

"As long as it's food and it's edible Dawnie, I don't care what we eat."

"Great!" Dawn chirped, "I know this great little restaurant, you're going to _love_ it!"

"Can't we just get some fast food or something, Dawnie? I really don't feel like sitting around to eat after sitting on a plane for almost eight hours." Dawn immediately deflated as the light on the seatbelt sign went out and one of the stewardess' began giving instructions over the intercom.

"Fine; you get the bags and I'll go get the rental car."

"Not gonna let me drive?" Faith teased.

"Not in London. You can barely drive in America; I'm not letting you anywhere behind a wheel on London streets."

"Killjoy."

"Yup."

* * *

><p>Harry was sitting at his desk looking over some paperwork and rubbing his forehead absentmindedly when a familiar voice distracted him.<p>

"Scar bugging you?" he looked up to find Ron standing in front of him, grinning cheekily, and he smirked.

"Don't be stupid, Ron; I've just got a headache."

"Paperwork'll do that to you," the red-head replied sagely.

"What would you know about paperwork? If I recall correctly you just shove yours off onto your trainees."

"At least I have a system."

"Barely," a female voice commented.

"And I suppose your system is so much more efficient, Ginny?"

"Of course; then again, being a professional Quidditch player, I don't really have paperwork, hence the lack of need for a system." She walked over and landed a quick peck on Harry's lips. "Hi."

"Hey, I thought you had an early-morning practice?"

"I did. Now I have the rest of the day off. Lunch?" Harry smiled and stood up.

"I suppose the paperwork can wait until later." Ginny grabbed his hand, pushing past her brother and heading towards the lift. "See you later, Ron."

"So what's on your mind?"

"Hm?"

"Your headache? Paperwork doesn't give you headaches, Harry, new recruits maybe, but not paperwork; at least not usually."

"You know me far too well," he remained silent a moment, trying to figure out the best way to word what he wanted to say. "Have you been having weird dreams lately?" he asked as the lift arrived and they both got on.

"Weird how?"

"I'm not exactly sure…"

* * *

><p>"You're lost."<p>

"I am not lost, Faith!" Dawn snapped, blowing her bangs out of her eyes, "I have been in London before Faith, I know how to get to the damn hotel."

"Then why the hell is it taking so long to get there?"

"You know," Dawn began, "you are really irritable today."

"I'm learning that I don't deal well with jet lag." They sat in silence for a moment.

"What's really bothering you?" Dawn asked quietly.

"What if…what if we don't like what we find?" Faith was quiet, her voice almost child-like, and Dawn found it unnerving.

"Then we deal with, like we usually do," she assured the older girl. "Anyway we're here." She put the car in park and Faith looked out her window, her eyes growing wide.

"_That's_ the council building?"

"No, this is just the council's boarding house; the actual offices where all the nitty-gritty happens, is located more in the actual city." Dawn turned and handed Faith a small bronze key. "We have the tenth floor; it's a suite with four rooms, one of them has my things in it already, so just pick one of the empty ones and get settled in. I'm going over to the office to get started on my research, maybe find something caffeinated." Faith rolled her eyes, unbuckling her seatbelt and slinging her duffel bag over one shoulder as she got out of the small rental.

"Don't study too hard," she teased; Dawn flipped her the bird as Faith shut the door before pulling away from the curb and into traffic. "C'mon, Faithie, let's go face the music." Faith muttered to herself before climbing the short set of stairs leading into the lobby-like entrance.

"Hi, welcome to Council Housing, can I help you?" a cheerfully familiar voice asked, making Faith smile at the prospect of a familiar face.

"Nah, Dawnie gave me a key," Faith remarked nonchalantly, causing the brunette's head to snap up from the computer she was typing on to actually i_look/i _at the person who had walked inside.

"Faith!" Shannon called, making the few girls who had been milling about look up. "It's so good to see you, I had no idea you were coming to England!"

"Neither did I till yesterday, but my dreams have been getting a little out of whack lately and Dawn needed better research material." Faith explained; Shannon had been one of the few potentials-turned-slayers that she had actually managed to bond with after the whole Sunnydale Hellmouth fiasco.

"Apocalypse?" a slayer she didn't recognize asked.

"I think it's just a _smidge_ early in the season for that, but who knows these days." A couple of the girls laughed before continuing on their way.

"I'll see you later Shannon, gonna go catch some Z's," Faith waved as she made her way towards the stairwell. It was more common for a slayer to take the stairs than it was for them to take an elevator she had noticed, and she assumed it was a self-preservation thing; you were less likely to get trapped on the stairs then you were to get trapped in an elevator.

She reached the tenth floor and pulled out the key Dawn gave her, using it to unlock the door; the entire suite was theirs to use, and all of the doors leading to it, including the elevator, could only be accessed with the key. She wandered around a moment, exploring all of the rooms before finally choosing one across the hall from Dawn's, as close to the stairwell as she could get. She dropped her duffel on the dresser before collapsing on the bed on her stomach, kicking off her boots and wrapping her arms around a pillow as she settled in for a nap…

* * *

><p><em>She was wandering down a small set of stairs into a darkened alley, every instinct in her body screaming at her that this was a bad idea, that something wasn't right. There was a sign on one of the brick walls, but she couldn't make out the name, just a hand, curled into a fist with one finger pointing down the alleyway. Her entire being protesting the action, she began walking in the direction the finger was pointing. There was a noise to her left and she jumped, spinning around.<em>

"_Who's there?" she called. "-?" A noise behind her and she turned around again, walking in the direction of the noise despite her better judgment. "Is that you?"_

"_No," a voice drawled, "I am afraid that - will be unable to meet you tonight."_

"_Show yourself!" she yelled, trying to keep the fear out of her voice and failing; the next thing she saw was a flash of silver, green gems, and bright white...then blackness…_

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**** Hi guys! Sorry this took forever but my external hard drive was busy being super-duper mean to me… *pout* Anyway, hopefully my next update will come faster. No promises though!**


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